Within an IP based communication system comprising an access network to an external IP based communication network, such as, for example, the Internet or IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem), Session Border Controllers (SBC) are usually located in between the access network and IP based communication core networks. The SBCs are arranged to provide access and interconnections for terminals in the access network to the IP-based communication core networks. The SBCs may also, by creating terminations or anchoring points in a media proxy for a call between two terminals, provide operators with the ability to monitor various call parameters, such as, for example, call length, call services etc.
However, SBCs may further be arranged to refrain from anchoring media plane traffic in the SBCs between two terminals. This allows the media plane traffic of the call to float directly between the two terminals in the access network. This functionality in a telephone communications system may be referred to as local media or media release connection.
A local media or media release connection between two terminals may be used, for example, in company internal networks or other organizational structures, in order to achieve a more efficient usage of available bandwidth. It may also be used to avoid occupying unnecessary resources by having media plane streams from the access network also running through other network nodes in the IP based communications core network.
This may also be referred to as hair pinning or anchoring media streams of the access network in the IP based communications core network.
Before establishing a local media or media release connection between two terminals in the access network, the SBCs must independently make a decision whether or not a local media or media release connection is allowed between the calling terminal and the called terminal. Therefore, the SBCs must be configured and updated with user information about which terminals in the access network that are allowed to communicate with each other using a local media or media release connection.
This provides SBCs with a high degree of complexity. It also makes updating and adding to the user configuration information a time-consuming and arduous task. In the case of multiple SBCs, it also follows that each of the SBCs has to be individually programmed with the user configuration information.